Pinecrest Camping Expedition

Bit late of a post but, hey, Im on my own schedual now it seems. So we headed up to Pinecrest Camp Ground in Middle East California, in the high Sierras. So, let us see hmmm... Base Camp was established.



Moving along we soon discovered that the relatives had successfully negotiated with the treacherous mountain paths, natives and wild life to make the trip up also.



Here we see, from left to right, back of Debs head, behind her in the grey hair and plaid shirt is Erin, then Lori giving us her "im a blond with to many marguaretas look" and then her husband Jeff "of the devious machine". More on that later...

So Erin likes a nice, Tall, camp fire, though if I recall rightly, Jerry, seated, was taking a bet on how long that log would remain upright...



So us guys hit the bikes and roared off to explore the lakeside,... as a side note Erin brought his Binoculars so as to help identify Landmarks.. so he said..

Jeff and Jerry catching their breath.. along with me... oh, the bikes were the pedal type..

Now, here is Jeffs Machine.. actually explained as an early christmas gift for Lori, its an Ice crusher for Margaretas..... Which was experimented with and in the end much consumption for frozen concoctions came about!

Our party was 3 members strong;



Here is the indomitable duo, Debbie and Becky, after they had their morning coffee, the before picture without coffee would shatter peoples minds if they had to see it..heh. (Debbie was in charge of the heavy weapons and Becky was doing all the demolitions for the Indiana Jones style cave trip... thats another story..)



Here's the Camp, uh, Leader...uh huh, the "right away dear" guy working hard.
Later, Becky was running out of time and luck to remain so I came up with a plan to let her stay:



Didn't work to well though, forgot to drop the other gate behind her.



"Whats wrong with my cell phone? Sure its a little old" quote the Debbie.

Beckys major find on this trip was the body of water, still not sure what she named it yet...

Oh yes, we played horse shoes, at which I'm the wild card.. Here's Jerry and Erin looking and watching for one of my horse shoe pitches to come back down...



A shot of Erin that just seemed to capture that rested spirt from camping really well.

The whole operation Camp Out came off due to the tireless effort of Bev, wife of Erin, who played the telephone reservation game with precision and determination.

No major hurts, falls or oopsies that I know of this time out, new friends and chance meetings all around.

And there you have it.

Pennsylvania Trip

Off we went to Pennsylvania for a week at Joe Bakers, our on line gaming friend whom we have known for around 5 years and as he has been out to our place we figured to return to find out more about his abode and state.

After jet lag recovery we headed out to ride the Titusville rail and see the Oil Creek valley, where oil was first pumped in the US. Thats one of the cars we rode in, though for over half the trip we went and stood in the open flat car so we could really see the colors of fall.

Yep, thats Joe in the Blue and white coat with the very cushy western hat. Alan is in the brownish coat, and Debbie in the fuzzy hat. Brisk was the ride out there, but Debbie was a champ and stuck it out for most of the time I was out there.

So, here's one of Alan looking back down the train car line and you have to clik the picture to get a better look at the Wooden Oil Dereks on the hill in amongst the trees. The recorded commentary through out the ride let us know that at the time the oil field was in full use, there were No trees left standing, or brush, all of it went to build deriks or into stoves etc.

Next place of interest was where we hung our hat for the duration between traveling hither and yonder.

Nice green lands surround Joe's place. Seems everything was growing, unlike our place in Sacramento where everything is.... brown for 9 months of the year. Now for a picture of Joe's command center, being an on line gamer and all,

Thats a kidney shaped piece of plywood, sanded and sealed to be his moveable lap table for his computer key board, mouse, drinks , you name it. Have to make something like that for Debs recliner where she plays her laptop computer at.

So once we were rested up again it was time for other World of Warcraft on line gamers to come on over. So here we have some of the usual suspects in the line up, Shawn (aka Goone), Joe (aka Imina), Alan (aka Merksa), Debbie (aka Debbie), Dean (aka Hetama) and Cathy (aka Littlelat).

Of course John Golling and his daughter Dakota made it and are in the next picture;

John's eldest daughter, Emily, somehow grew up to be almost 16 when Deb and I weren't looking! Alas, she couldn't make it to the party.

Okay, off to Niagra Falls!